Make Your PC Smart and Fast

1. Disable Autorun from all drives.
2. Speed Up Browsing speed (explore optimization).
3. Disable Indexing services.
4. Optimize Display Settings.
5. Speed up folder browsing.
6. Disable Unnecessary Services.
7. Remove annoying delete confirmation messages.

1. Go to START menu then go to RUN and type "gpedit.msc" (without quotes) and press enter.
2. Now here you will see two things first is Computer configuration and
second is user configuration, you to go to both one by one.
3. First go to Computer Configuration then Go to Administrative Templates and then to System.
4. Now find the Key "Turn off Autoplay". Double click on it. Now click
on Enable and select all drive and click on apply. So for computer its
done, now you need to do for your own Account.
5. Second go to User Configuration --: Administrative Templates --: System --: And repeat the 4th step again.

When you connect to a web site your computer sends information back and
forth. Some of this information deals with resolving the site name to an
IP address, the stuff that TCP/IP really deals with, not words. This is
DNS information and is used so that you will not need to ask for the
site location each and every time you visit the site. Although Windows
XP and Windows XP have a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase
its overall performance by increasing its size. You can do this with the
registry entries below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]
"CacheHashTableBucketSize"=dword:00000001
"CacheHashTableSize"=dword:00000180
"MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000fa00
"MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000012d

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of
RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system
process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your
computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on
your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you
don't search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this
system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

1. Go to Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs
5. Click the Add/Remove Window Components
6. Uncheck the Indexing services and click on next

.

Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources.
To optimize:

1.Go to Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Click System
5. Click Advanced tab
6. In the Performance tab click Settings
7. Leave only the following ticked:
- Show shadows under menus
- Show shadows under mouse pointer
- Show translucent selection rectangle
- Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
- Use visual styles on windows and button.

This one is already covered by windows SP2 and SP3. But still i will share.
You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse
folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP
automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open
Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:

1. Open My Computer
2. Click on Tools menu
3. Click on Folder Options
4. Click on the View tab.
5. Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
6. Click Apply
7. Click Ok
8. Reboot your computer

Because Windows XP has to be all things to all people it has many
services running that take up system resources that you will never need.
Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines:

Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Fast User Switching
Help and Support - (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)
Human Interface Access Devices
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Remote Registry Service
Secondary Logon
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service - (Unplug n' Pray will disable this)
Telnet
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Upload Manager
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network)
Workstation

To disable these services:
Go to Start and then Run and type "services.msc"
Doubleclick on the service you want to change
Change the startup type to 'Disable".

Although not strictly a performance tweak I love this fix as it makes my
machine 'feel' faster. I hate the annoying 'are you sure?' messages
that XP displays, especially if I have to use a laptop touchpad to close
them. To remove these messages:
1. Right-click on the 'Recycle Bin' on the desktop and then click 'Properties'
2. Clear the 'Display Delete Confirmation Dialog' check box and click 'Ok'